Deputy Regional Director – Elke Wisch

Elke Wisch assumed her position as UNICEF Deputy Regional Director on 1 October 2010 after having worked in different capacities within the organization for the past 15 years.

A national of Germany, Ms. Wisch joined UNICEF in 1995 in Rwanda, where she started as Project Officer for Child Protection. She then moved to the Desk Office for Eastern and Southern Africa at New York Headquarters. In 1997, Ms. Wisch returned to Africa, first as Emergency/Reintegration Coordinator in Rwanda and then Child Protection Officer and Section Chief Child Protection in Liberia. Her next postings included the Area Office for the Balkans, where she worked as a Programme Officer and the Afghanistan Office, where she served as an Emergency Programme Coordinator, and then Section Chief Child Protection. In 2003, she became Deputy Representative in Myanmar before being seconded as Senior Recovery Advisor to the UN Country Team in Uganda in 2007. Since January 2009, Ms. Wisch has been working in the UNICEF Regional Office for Eastern and Southern Africa in Nairobi, where she first held the post of Policy and Strategic Planning Chief, before assuming her position as Deputy Regional Director.

Ms. Wisch holds a Master of Arts in Social and Political Science from the Ludwig-Maximillian University in Munich, and a Master in Public Administration from the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

Before joining UNICEF, Ms. Wisch worked as Research Assistant for the Africa Department of the Foreign Policy Foundation, Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik” (Germany) and as Angola Project Officer for the conflict-resolution organization Search for Common Ground (Washington DC).